


less the monsters, than how we lived beside them

by crookedspoon



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Angst and Humor, Established Relationship, M/M, Wing Kink, Wingfic, Wings as an erogenous zone, a character grows feathery wings and their partner is absolutely delighted by them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 06:00:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29148606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedspoon/pseuds/crookedspoon
Summary: Sephiroth is standing over him, his face pulled into a mask of horror, but Rufus only has eyes for a very special part of Sephiroth, one hitherto unknown to him: a large black wing stretches out above Sephiroth's right shoulder, blocking out the light. Rufus sits up, staring at it in awe.It's... it'sbeautiful.
Relationships: Sephiroth/Rufus Shinra
Comments: 6
Kudos: 23
Collections: Bulletproof 20/21





	less the monsters, than how we lived beside them

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wingfics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wingfics/gifts).



> Hi Wingfics! Hope you don't mind another treat thrown your way. Your prompts were just too good to pass up!

Rufus may be projecting, but the energy inside the infirmary has a more frantic edge to it than usual. It seems to be catching, too. As he follows the nurse down the corridor, he becomes increasingly aware of his thudding heart and the sweat prickling his temples. 

"Why hasn't he been transferred to Sector Zero yet?" The medical facility there specialises in the treatment of SOLDIERs, who – because of their genetic enhancements – have slightly different needs than their regular counterparts. "You said he was stable."

"He has requested to be transferred to a secure holding facility instead," the nurse informs him, trying to match his pace. He doesn't even know where exactly he needs to go, just that can't stop moving until he gets there. "We're waiting on a transport and guards."

Perhaps he's not so stable after all. "Cancel that order."

"Sir?"

"On my authority." He stifles a sigh. You would think being vice-president of the company that bankrolls this place, he wouldn't need to press. "He's too valuable to be locked up before his condition has been assessed by experts."

 _Before_ I _have seen him._

To her credit, she hesitates only a moment before acquiescing.

"Of course. This way, please."

She leads him to a nondescript door at the end of a nondescript corridor. He nods his thanks. 

"Leave us," he says.

She withdraws.

The room is windowless and dark, lit only by the rectangle of light that pours in through the open door. He makes out a dark shape huddled on the narrow hospital bed. From that shadow, a pair of eyes glow like a cat's.

"That's a dramatic setup, even for you," Rufus remarks drily and flicks on the lights. And here Sephiroth always accuses _him_ of overdoing the dramatics.

"Rufus?" Sephiroth blurts, holding up a hand to shield his eyes. A very gloveless hand – a rare sight outside their own walls. "What are you doing here?"

"Asking why you would want to be locked up."

"No, stay there," Sephiroth demands as Rufus steps inside the room. "Don't come any closer."

Rufus frowns. Is he catching or something? "What happened?"

Sephiroth is hunched over, as though he had suffered a blow to the stomach. His tattered coat, thrown carelessly across his shoulders like a shock blanket, hides any potential wounds from view.

"I said stay back," Sephiroth warns him again. "You need to leave."

Not that Rufus would listen. When Sephiroth is this agitated, there has to be a reason. He's never seen him like this. At least, not in recent years.

In hindsight, perhaps he should have been a little more cautious. Just enough so that he wouldn't have been knocked on his ass. But self-preservation has never been his strongest trait.

Sephiroth is standing over him, his face pulled into a mask of horror, but Rufus only has eyes for a very special part of Sephiroth, one hitherto unknown to him: a large black wing stretches out above Sephiroth's right shoulder, blocking out the light. Rufus sits up, staring at it in awe. 

It's... it's _beautiful._

"I told you to go," Sephiroth says. His voice is flat, almost mechanical, as though he was either bottling up his emotions tightly or was too exhausted to feel anything anymore, but still trying to keep himself together. "It's not safe around me."

"Why only one?" Rufus asks, getting to his feet and brushing himself off.

"The question is: why one at all?" Sephiroth counters as he sinks back down onto the hospital bed, and this time he definitely sounds defeated. He rests his face in his hands. "Please leave, Rufus. I can't stand the thought of you looking at me right now."

Rufus scoffs. "If you didn't want me to look, perhaps you shouldn't be sitting there bare to the waist."

Sephiroth shoots him an unamused look through his bangs that speaks of just how bone-tired he is. It's short-lived, however, and nothing that would have impressed Rufus anyway. 

Sephiroth throws the thin hospital sheet over his shoulders, though it does little to hide his wing. It must be as long as he is tall. It's difficult to tell at the moment because it's folded in on itself, curved protectively around Sephiroth as though to act as a screen. It's odd how much it looks like an additional arm like that, if a somewhat misshapen and feathery one. Rufus has never paid much attention to winged creatures, but he'll definitely pay attention to _this_ one.

"Can I touch it?" he asks and reaches out to run his fingers lightly atop the span of it, just to feel if it's as soft as it looks. The sleek black feathers are reflecting the light, gleaming with the same sheen as Sephiroth's silver hair. Rufus knows from experience how soft _that_ is.

The wing snaps back, almost as though to slap Rufus's hand away.

Sephiroth all but shoots upright and a few feet away.

"I'm— I'm sorry," he stammers. Rufus hasn't seen him this distressed since he was a young SOLDIER and had a strong reaction to his mako treatment. "I told you to leave. I have no control over it."

Rufus smiles. "Wouldn't be the first time you let a little loose around me."

Sephiroth lowers his eyes and scrubs a hand over the light blush staining his cheeks. "This is not the time for jokes like that."

"I'm not joking." Rufus steps closer.

"Insinuations then."

"And what makes this time different from any other?"

Sephiroth grows very still, his expression cycling through shocked and horrified all the way back to resigned. "You're right," he says. "No point in denying it: I've always been a monster. This—" he shrugs his winged shoulder, "this is just another proof."

 _Shiva, give me strength,_ Rufus thinks and clicks his tongue. "That's not what I was getting at."

Before Sephiroth can sink further into dejection, Rufus bridges the space between them by getting right in his face. Sephiroth skitters backwards until his back hits the wall. His wing stretches out against it and, yes, it definitely is as long as Sephiroth is tall.

"Look at me," Rufus says as gently as he can muster – which is probably not that gentle at all, but he hopes Sephiroth will know he's trying. Rufus is not good at this. He can fake understanding all he wants, but it won't be enough to ease Sephiroth's misery. "I said look at me." 

Careful not to exert too much pressure, Rufus touches Sephiroth's chin and coaxes him to face front again. Reluctantly, Sephiroth blinks his eyes open. His pupils are mere slashes in the teal of his iris. They have always both unnerved and enthralled him – like a prey animal.

 _"This—"_ Rufus says and pins Sephiroth's wing against the wall as though it were a wrist – "changes nothing. Perhaps your gene expression is the slightest bit different from that of the rest of us, but that doesn't automatically make you a monster."

Sephiroth's wing is trembling like a little bird's, making it appear more delicate than it is. Rufus curls his hand around it. The bones beneath his palm feel surprisingly sturdy. Most likely due to its size. It _did_ pack quite a punch.

"You don't understand," Sephiroth says. He sucks in a breath and releases it again, as though to steady himself. "I have this... this rage inside me, and it's so hard to control sometimes. During the war... on the battlefield... that was one of the few times I have ever truly felt at peace. When I was killing people."

He flicks his eyes up toward the ceiling, rests his head against the wall and swallows. In that moment it strikes Rufus that Sephiroth is right: he doesn't understand. He's never felt anguish over his anger – he'd simply honed it into a knife point. Then again, he's not _like_ Sephiroth. He might be able to beat someone to death with the right tools, but he couldn't tear anyone limb from limb with his bare hands. Sephiroth could. 

Perhaps he is right to fear his own strength.

Perhaps Rufus should fear it, too. But he doesn't. Instead, he brushes Sephiroth's bangs out of his face and combs his fingers into the hair at his nape.

"That rage?" he says, gathering Sephiroth's hair away from his neck. "It doesn't make you a monster."

He leans in closer so they're cheek to cheek – or cheek to jaw, given their height difference. 

"You may think you're alone in feeling this way," he murmurs. "You're not. The rush of adrenaline in the midst of battle... there's no other clarifying force like it. Not even drugs."

 _Not even sex,_ he thinks as he grazes his teeth over Sephiroth's neck, burying his fingers in his feathers and hair. Though knowing that has never stopped him from trying.

Sephiroth hisses. His entire body goes rigid against Rufus and his wing folds away from his touch with a snap.

Rufus jerks his left hand back as though burned; the other still cradles Sephiroth's head.

"Did that hurt?" he asks, a little stunned.

Sephiroth wordlessly shakes his head, eyes wide, trembling. He exhales slowly, deliberately.

"Then what?"

Tentatively, he runs his fingers over Sephiroth's plumage again. It's crazy soft; softer than even his hair. Sephiroth sucks in another breath and _twitches._

"Could it be... could it be you're sensitive?" he muses and tickles the feathers some more.

With another hiss, Sephiroth catches Rufus by the wrist to keep him from touching his wing. His cheeks are dusted a dark pink.

"You are!" _Oh, this is _delightful,__ Rufus thinks.

"Don't even _think_ of touching it again," Sephiroth says, a touch breathily. His wing is quivering and Rufus finds it even more fascinating now.

"Honey, I can't think of anything _but_ touching it now. Tell me what it feels like."

"It's... it's nice," Sephiroth admits, face gradually taking on the shade of a hedgehog pie. "Though it feels somewhat... indecent, too. Like you shouldn't be running your fingers through it when anyone could be walking in at any moment."

Rufus can't help his devious smile. _Delightful_ indeed. "All the more reason to go home right this instant."

Sephiroth sobers up at that.

"Rufus, we don't know what it does," he tries to caution Rufus, though his blush belies his seriousness. "It was just suddenly there, shielding me from an explosion and a shower of debris. There could be other side effects."

"Well, we know one thing that it does." Rufus capitalises on Sephiroth's relaxed grip, pulls his wrist free, and brushes his knuckles over the soft feathertips.

"Stop that!"

"It's making you weak, isn't it?"

Sephiroth's chest is visibly heaving, his eyes are glazed, and although his hand is around Rufus's arm again, he's not actually stopping him.

"Think I can make you come just from touching it?"

Sephiroth's breath hitches, and he does not tell Rufus off for even thinking it. Rufus considers that progress.

"For that, we best get out of here," he suggests. "Even if you're not interested in my proposal, I vote on getting out of here all the same."

Sephiroth shakes his head. "I should stay and wait for the lab results before I sprout another one of these."

"Would that be so terrible?" Walking backward a few steps, Rufus pictures Sephiroth with a second wing. He would be just as pretty and imposing as he is with one. Or without any.

"Ask yourself that again once I've knocked over everything in my path." Sephiroth sighs and lets his head drop back against the wall. "Because I just know that's going to happen."

Rufus just shrugs. "Worth it, if you ask me."

"I disagree."

"Then let me raise another point," Rufus says and picks up Sephiroth's tattered coat from the hospital bed. "Hojo and the other scientists back at HQ are going to have a field day with you once they hear of this."

Sephiroth grimaces. Mentioning Hojo was perhaps a low blow, but if it gets Rufus what he wants, he can always make it up to Sephiroth later.

"You're right," Sephiroth accedes at last and accepts his coat. "Let's go."

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Character Being a Different Thing from Beauty, Describe the Difference" by Carl Phillips.


End file.
